"I'll want to kill myself"

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We have reached this point. We have scheduled DS for a psych consult at our local childrens' hospital, have notified the school, which has a crisis plan in place - so he isn't allowed to be alone. They suggested that we talk to him about the ramifications about what he said, that the need for safety overrides his need for privacy at the moment - but I think Aspie1 is spot-on with the concern he mentions and I am really worried about it.

DS has been talking suicide since he was 4 - he was able to express a wish to harm himself before he knew the word "die" or "shoot." It is what first sent us looking for treatment, but up to now we haven't been taken very seriously. (I cannot tell you how awful the conversation was with the hospital intake person. One would think that the word suicide would be sufficient to get their attention - at the very least when combined with the word aspergers. )

Things ramped up last night because I *&^stupidly*&^ in an attempt to talk about bullying, showed him the Obama video on the Trevor project. He began perseverating on the kids who killed themselves, asking what they did and how - we called and got him an appointment, we plan on watching him more carefully than usual for the next few days and to take him to the childrens ER if there is any slight indication that this perseveration is continuing/going further. I am very frustrated with my own shortsightedness, I should have known he would take only the negative message.

I would welcome any feedback from anyone - and if you have AS, please don't worry about your communications skills/hurting my feelings. Your perspective is really, really important.

I don't remember how old your son is-but we went through this with my daughter a while ago. She was talking about dying or everyone else being dead on a daily basis. I got her into counseling immediately. Here's the thing-it needs to be the RIGHT counselor-because the wrong one can make things worse. Things have improved here greatly but it's been with a lot of work and removing her from public school (anxiety prone situation). We also went down to bare minimum stress load-absolutely NO responsibilities beyond school and worked at a lot of positive interaction, talked about the reasons to enjoy being alive, and really, really worked on lowering any and all anxiety. The counselor counseled me not to react to the statement except to acknowledge and say things like "I would really miss you" or "that would make me really sad" or "just think, you'd miss Christmas and all the presents or ____________(some thing they enjoy)". Show them the reasons not to want to die, realistically. And above all, never ignore it or tell them it's inappropriate to say/think things like that. That just further enforces the feeling that something's genuinely "wrong" with them and that's probably where the desire to cease existing is coming from in the first place.

Thank you, Mama - that is very helpful (and we are very aware of the counselor issue, we are currently shopping - fortunately, I've been in counseling on and off most of my life and have a good idea of what to look for) DS is 10.

The school has asked us to explain the crisis plan, as things will be different (he will no longer be allowed the free pass, someone will have to accompany him) I have decided that we will talk about feelings and not words so that the words aren't implicated - e.g. "We are very concerned that you are having these strong feelings about wanting to die. We want to be sure we are taking very good care of you while you are having these feelings, because they are serious. For this reason X things are going to change at school."

The psych eval is going to be difficult to explain, he is really struggling with the "something wrong with me" idea, and I don't want to exacerbate that...but I am going to continue this tack of using language about taking care of him.

For a year my daughter constantly told me that she didn't want to live any more. It's really hard to hear that from a 10 or 11 year old.

I think the AS diagnosis was extremely helpful in providing a framework for understanding what was making her unhappy and also for helping her understand her own feelings.

My wife tried to kill herself many times. She said the first was when she was 13. She swallowed a bunch of pills from her parents medicine cabinet and was very disappointed to wake up the next morning. Over 30 years later she's still depressed. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse, but it's been a chronic condition. I would caution against thinking that a child was suicidal, but that problem has been solved.

I agree - part of why this is so hard is I've been there myself. What we are dealing with is a combination of magical thinking and impulsivity - a dangerous mix - and a lot of media attention to the issue of suicide. None of these things are going to magically disappear.

OK, had an assessment by a child psych at the local critical care unit. He agreed that it's just language DS uses when frustrated, that the escalation is not as significant as it appears, and that he is unlikely to follow through on any of the threats (especially since he is pain-averse.) My gut says he's right - though we're keeping the belts out of his room for the time being.

He will be seeing a psychiatrist at the place we are going to have evaluate him for autism on Monday.